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Kindling of a Firebrand: Fran Sweeney and the Fight Against Boston's Fascism, A Historical Novel
Hardcover
General FictionHistorical Fiction
Publisher: Bricktop Hill Books
Published: Jun 20 2026
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.09
Height: 0.81 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
As a young activist and reporter, Fran Sweeney stands up to powerful forces that threaten American democracy in the 1930s and 1940s. In the depths of the Great Depression, pro-Nazi organizations flooded her native Boston with propaganda and terror tactics, especially in Irish American neighborhoods like Charlestown, where she grew up. Inspired by her beloved Dad's example during her childhood on the waterfront and by her experience as an office worker in corporate America, Fran feels compelled to stand up and speak out for social justice and democracy. Her words and actions, brave and smart, win national attention for the difference they make in Boston and set an example for action throughout the country.
In sympathy with her Dad's left-leaning politics, in 1936 Fran joins a group working to defeat the national political party of Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic Radio Priest from Detroit who supports European fascists. Fran quits her job at a brokerage and starts a public relations business that serves only organizations she finds meaningful. Now a committed activist, she works to expose the pro-Nazi propaganda of the Christian Front organization. In 1941, Fran is hired to run the Boston chapter of the American Irish Defense Association, promoting the U.S.'s joining the war against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. She falls in love with an ally in the fight and plans to marry. Once the U. S. enters the war, Fran works as a reporter to quash the most pernicious wartime rumors. Capitalizing on the fame she earns from a Life magazine story on her Rumor Clinic, Fran establishes her own paper, the Boston City Reporter, which takes on fascist, pro-Nazi and racist elements in Boston. Her work garners her national recognition as a fealess firebrand for social justice.
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